The London Guantánamo has been campaigning since 2006 for the return of all British residents from the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, the release of all prisoners, the closure of this prison and other similar prisons and an end to the practice of extraordinary rendition. Human rights for all.

Friday, January 30, 2015

In mid-January,
British Prime Minister David Cameron met US president Barack Obama in
Washington to discuss various issues. During the talks, Cameron raised the case
of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident held at Guantánamo Bay. During the
meeting, Obama said that he would “prioritise Aamer’s case” but would still act
in a manner consistent with US national security. This cryptic public exchange
follows the fact that Aamer was cleared for release in 2007 and has never been
charged, and the British government has been seeking his release since then. It
has now been 10 years since the last British nationals were released from Guantánamo
and almost 6 since the last British resident returned to the UK. No further
information was given about why Aamer remains at Guantánamo.

Noor Uthman
Muhammed, a former prisoner from Sudan, who was released in December 2013
after serving a 34-month sentence in addition to the time he had spent at Guantánamo
after arriving there in 2002 after being convicted by a military tribunal of providing
material support to a terrorist organisation and conspiracy, has had his
charges acquitted. On 9 January the Pentagon said the conviction had been
withdrawn after an appeals court rules that material support is not a
legitimate war crime.

This news could lead to the conviction of former Australian prisoner
David Hicks being overturned as well. Hicks’ US lawyer Stephen Kenny said that
he is likely to see a similar outcome to his case soon. Charged with many offences, Hicks was found "guilty" only on the charge of conspiracy. He did not
plead guilty; he entered an Alford plea, whereby he did not admit guilt. He was
later jailed in Australia on his return to the country in 2007 as part of his
plea bargain deal, which was his only way of Guantánamo, even though an Alford
plea is not recognised under Australian law.

The US later said in January that it admits that Hicks is innocent. The
quashing of his conviction is a formality.

On 15 January, five Yemeni prisoners were released: four to Oman and one
to Estonia. There are currently 122 prisoners at the detention facility. The five
men are all in the 30s and 40s and had been cleared for release since at least
2009.

Following the current unrest in Yemen, the US has said that it will not
be returning prisoners to the country but that will not prevent the release of
Yemeni prisoners who have been cleared for release for years to safe third
countries.

A current prisoner, Mohamedou Slahi from
Mauritania, has had a redacted version of his diary telling of his life in
Guantánamo published following a battle to have it made public. He wrote it by
hand in English when he was held in solitary confinement in 2005. The book
details his journey to Guantánamo and tells of the torture and abuse he has
faced, including gang rape and beatings. Since its release, the book has become
a bestseller on Amazon and has been recommended by many writers and literary
figures.

As well as releases, periodic reviews of prisoners who are deemed too
dangerous to release continued. On 22 January, Egyptian Tariq Mahmud Ahmad Muhammad al Sawah, 57, who is suspected of
being involved in Al Qaeda operations against the US in Afghanistan had a
hearing to decide whether the US should continue to hold him or transfer him
back to Egypt. Although suspected, he faces no charges and the periodic review
board is an arbitrary administrative process which has no legal weight.

On 27 January, Yemeni Saeed Ahmed Mohammed
Abdullah Sarem Jarabh had his period review hearing. He too is suspected
of having fought for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, even though he has never been
charged in 13 years and there is no actual evidence against him. His lawyers submitted
that “he had studied Spanish and English at Guantanamo, had headed a prison
farm planning project and had taken up painting” and was eager to
reunite with his wife and children.

Lawyers for Canadian former prisoner Omar Khadr, who is currently held
in prison in Canada and is going blind, will apply for bail in his case in
March pending the outcome of an appeal against his military tribunal conviction
in the US. As shown in the cases of Hicks and Muhammed, the validity of
military tribunal convictions is on shaky ground, but in spite of action to
overturn such convictions in the US, the Canadian government remains a strong believer
in the torture evidence-based secret plea bargain conviction given to Omar
Khadr and opposes all moves to alleviate his suffering.

New information has come to light in recent weeks about Lithuania’s role
in the extraordinary rendition programme, including new flight logs and
information about the transfer of prisoners as part of efforts by human rights
NGOs to hold the state to account for its operation of torture prisons for the
CIA.

The LGC marked the
thirteenth anniversary of Guantánamo Bay with street theatre and talks at
the US Embassy on 11 January. Around 150 people joined the demonstration,
during which the public was given a public demonstration through artistic
performance of the hypocrisy of Barack Obama over the closure of Guantánamo
Bay. Speeches were given by Jean Lambert MEP, Ben Griffin from Veterans for
Peace UK, Noa Kleinman from Amnesty International UK, Joy Hurcombe from the
Save Shaker Aamer Campaign and solicitor Louise Christian.

Our next monthly “Shut
Guantánamo!” demo, which marks eight years of our regular demonstrations outside
the US Embassy and the second anniversary of the ongoing Guantánamo hunger
strike will be on Thursday 5 February: https://www.facebook.com/events/765634710187956/

Monday, January 12, 2015

Reading the Sunday
newspapers on 11 January, one may be excused for not knowing that the date
marks 13 years since the US-run concentration camp at Guantánamo Camp opened on
11 January 2002. The ongoing hunger strike and regime of indefinite detention
for 127 prisoners almost all held wholly without charge or trial for so many
years was barely worth a mention. To a media hungry for the next sensationalist
scare story, torture and arbitrary detention are possibly too real. Providing
little more than a pretext to justify the illegal actions of governments
worldwide, the suffering of the remaining prisoners and their families otherwise
lacks importance.

street theatre

This did not
stop human rights activists across the world holding protest actions to mark
this sombre anniversary. Protest actions were held in the UK, Ireland, Mexico and the US. In
Australia, activists and singer-songwriter Les Thomas launched a new song “Guantanamo
Blues” http://thejusticecampaign.org/?page_id=1927
In the evening, activists around the world joined the London Guantánamo
Campaign and Free Omar Khadr Now
for an online Twitter storm.

street theatre

In the
afternoon, around 150 people joined the London Guantánamo Campaign for a unique
protest action outside the US Embassy in London. As organisers of the main UK
protest to mark the anniversary of Guantánamo opening over the past 8 years,
people often expect to turn up to a sea of orange jumpsuits, black hoods and
angry chanting. This year we adopted a very different approach. Realising that
13 years on, not only are people immune and accustomed to the abuses that occur
at Guantánamo Bay on a daily basis, many are simply unaware altogether. With such
little coherent coverage it is hard to know what is really happening. To address
this, we performed a piece of street theatre called “The Three Obamas”, in
which three actors, and some support, re-enacted various statements and
promises Barack Obama has made since 2008 about closing Guantánamo Bay. As
president, his first action in 2009 was to sign a decree ordering the closure
of Guantánamo Bay by 2010. Five years later, 127 men are still waiting.

Noa Kleinman, Amnesty International UK

courtesy of Faiz Baluch

The street theatre
was in two parts to reflect the period between 2011 and 2013, when Obama acknowledged
his broken promises with silence and the start of the ongoing hunger strike at
Guantánamo Bay which brought the prison camp back under the spotlight.

Ben Griffin, Veterans for Peace UK

Joy Hurcombe, Save Shaker Aamer Campaign

Jean Lambert, Green MEP for London

During the “intermission”
between the two parts, activists were addressed by speakers including solicitor
for several British nationals held in Guantánamo Bay, Louise Christian, London
Green MEP Jean Lambert, Noa Kleinman from Amnesty International UK, Ben Griffin
from Veterans for Peace UK and Joy Hurcombe from the Save Shaker Aamer
Campaign. It has now been 10 years since the last British nationals were
released from Guantánamo Bay.

Louise Christian, solicitor

While the street
theatre performance highlighted the hypocrisy of the US administration over
Guantánamo Bay and CIA torture, the speakers focused mainly on the collusion of
the British government. Pointing out that this year also marks the 800th
anniversary of the Magna Carta, it is ludicrous that British resident Shaker
Aamer remains in Guantánamo Bay after 13 years without charge or trial.
Speakers also called for an independent torture inquiry into the UK’s collusion
with the US and transparency over Britain’s role in the US’s wars on terror.
Joy Hurcombe reminded people that David Cameron will be meeting President Obama
later this month and urged people to write to the prime minister and their MP
to urge that the question of Shaker Aamer’s release to the UK feature high up
the meeting agenda. In an election year, this is also a perfect opportunity to
raise your concerns about Guantánamo Bay with local election candidates.

courtesy of Faiz Baluch

After 13
years, this is indeed who we are, along with the US and all its other allies. In
the meantime, the campaign to close Guantánamo will continue and we hope you
will join us. The London Guantánamo thanks everyone who joined us for a
successful and enlightening event, in particular the actors, singers and props
persons involved in the street theatre performance. Special thanks to our
speakers for sharing their expertise and concerns with us and to Occupy London for providing live
streaming throughout the event.

In case you
missed or did not get enough yesterday, the Islam Channel will feature a one-hour
special about the anniversary action on “The Report” at 9pm on Monday 12
January, on Sky channel 806 and Freeview.

Friday, January 09, 2015

Activists will gather outside the
US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, to mark the 13th anniversary
of the opening of Guantánamo Bay prison camp.

The London Guantánamo Campaign [1]
will host the demonstration, which will include:

·a street theatre performance on Barack Obama’s many broken promises to close
the Guantánamo Bay prison camp over the years (at 2:30pm)

·speakers, including Louise Christian, solicitor for former prisoners [2]

Aisha Maniar, organiser from
the London Guantánamo Campaign, says, "Torture and the arbitrary, lawless regime at
Guantánamo Bay have become defining features of our century. Barack Obama’s question posed
rhetorically in 2013, “Is this who we are?” [3] received an emphatic,
affirmative answer in the redacted US Senate report into CIA torture published
at the end of 2014.

"The report also revealed the
complicity of numerous US allies, including the United Kingdom. The British government must now take
serious measures to investigate and prosecute all allegations of wrongdoing and
torture complicity by UK agencies. It must also seize the opportunity presented
by the recent drive to release Guantánamo prisoners held for 13 years without
charge or trial, and cleared for release. It must use the
opportunity to demand the release of the last
British resident held in Guantánamo Bay, Shaker Aamer.”

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The London Guantánamo Campaign
was set up in 2006 and campaigns for justice for all prisoners at Guantánamo
Bay, for the closure of this and other secret prisons, and an end to the
practice of extraordinary rendition. http://londonguantanamocampaign.blogspot.com

Friday, January 02, 2015

In late December,
British newspapers reported that Shaker Aamer is among the prisoners cleared
for release who are likely to be released by the US in the New Year. In recent
months, Barack Obama’s administration has stepped up its effort to release
prisoners who do not face charge or trial and are not deemed to pose a threat
to the US. Dozens more may be released in the coming months. The Daily Mail
stated “It is understood that he is one of 64 prisoners who have been cleared
for release and will be released in the next couple of months.” However, there
has been no official confirmation or suggestion of this. Shaker Aamer has been
cleared for release since 2007.

Earlier in December,
Hayes and Harlington Labour MP John McDonnell set up an all-party parliamentary
group on Shaker Aamer as “Further parliamentary
pressure is urgently needed.” The group
has received broad cross-party support and held its first meeting on 10 December.

A few days later, a group
of celebrities signed a letter in the Daily Mail calling for Shaker
Aamer’s return to the UK. The Daily Mail also reported that in response
deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg suggested that Shaker Aamer, who has never
faced charges either in the US or the UK, should be brought back to the UK to
face judicial process, showing the government’s continuing confusion about his
status and how the law works.

NEWS:

Guantánamo Bay:

Fifteen more prisoners were released from Guantánamo Bay over December,
bringing the number of prisoners held there down to 127 by the end of 2014,
from 155 at the beginning of that year. A total of 28 prisoners were released
in 2014, the largest number in one year since Barack Obama became president in
2009. More releases are anticipated in 2015.

On 7 December, 6 prisoners – 4 Syrians, 1 Tunisian and 1 Palestinian –
were released to Uruguay which accepted them on humanitarian grounds. All 6 had
been cleared for release since at least 2010 and the group included Syrian hunger
striker Abu Wa’el Dhiab, who brought a case against the US government for the
force-feeding of hunger-striking prisoners. The 6 men have not been subject to
further incarceration in Uruguay and some have since found jobs and are living
ordinary lives.

On 20 December, 4 prisoners were returned to Afghanistan - Shawali Khan, Khi Ali Gul, Abdul Ghani and Mohammed Zahir -
following a review of their status which cleared them for release. 8 more
Afghans are believed to be held at Guantánamo.

On 31 December, 5
prisoners, two Tunisians and 3 Yemenis were resettled in Kazakhstan in Central
Asia following extensive negotiations with the government there. The five men
are Asim Thabit Abdullah Al-Khalaqi, 46, Muhammad Ali Husayn Khanayna, 36, and Sabri
Mohammad al Qurash, 44, all from Yemen and Adel Al-Hakeemy, 49, and Abdallah
Bin Ali al Lufti, 48 from Tunisia. Tunisia is considered currently too unstable
and dangerous to return prisoners to and although in 2013 Barack Obama lifted a
moratorium on returning Yemeni prisoners who are cleared for release to their
home country, all releases of Yemeni prisoners from Guantánamo Bay since have
been to third countries. Nonetheless, in 2014, his administration was able to
transfer two Yemeni prisoners held at the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan to the
country.

In spite of these
releases and promises to release further prisoners, in the same month, Obama
also signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2015 which
places checks on his ability to release prisoners and close Guantánamo without
Congress’ approval. As in previous years that he signed up to similar
provisions, he made verbal threats to use his executive power to override them.
Nonetheless, with the “official” withdrawal of US troops and the end of
hostilities in Afghanistan, there is no longer any basis to continue keeping
Guantánamo open and may cause even greater legal problems for the US
government.

On 9 December, the
periodic review board cleared a Yemeni prisoner, 35-year old Abdel Malik Wahab
al Rahabi, for release, subject to some constraints, even though in March 2014,
it deemed it was too dangerous to release him. He was one of the first
prisoners to arrive at Guantánamo on 11 January 2002 and although he was never
charged, he was accused of being a bodyguard of Osama Ben Laden. Following this
decision, there are currently 35 prisoners being held indefinitely as “forever
prisoners”, who cannot be charged but are deemed too dangerous to release,
through an administrative and not a judicial procedure.

The US State Department’s special envoy for the closure of Guantánamo
appointed in June 2013, Clifford Sloan, resigned from his post after 18 months citing
his frustration at the delays in prisoner transfers. His job consisted of
negotiating the release of prisoners with foreign states. The search is on now
for a new envoy.

Omar Khadr will be heading back to the Supreme Court of Canada after it
decided to hear an appeal by the Canadian government against an earlier
decision to have Omar Khadr held as a juvenile prisoner, given that he allegedly
committed the offences he was convicted of aged 15; this move would facilitate
his rehabilitation. The decision comes as a surprise to his lawyers as the
decision being appealed was unanimous and Khadr has not lost a single case
against the Canadian government in the Supreme Court in over 10 years. His
lawyer Dennis Edney QC said, “So once again, we're
going back to the Supreme Court for a third time. The government will be using
the taxpayers dollars, as usual, and I'll be using my own particular savings to
fight on behalf of Omar Khadr”.

A few days early, his lawyers revealed that Omar Khadr, who lost sight
in his left eye in a gunfight in Afghanistan in 2002, is now almost blind in
his right eye too due to a lack of treatment over the past 12 years. He has a
cataract in his right eye, probably caused by a piece of shrapnel that has
remained lodged in it since 2002 and is currently unable to read or see
clearly. He is urgently in need of a specialist operation to restore sight to
his eye. Khadr has spent all of his time since his release to prison in Canada
in late 2012 studying for his high school diploma and is hoping to continue
with his studies to college level. Having been held as an adult at Guantánamo,
he was denied an education during his formative teenage years.

On 23 December, former Guantánamo prisoner Rasul Kudaev, 36, who was
released in 2004 along with 6 other Russian nationals held there, was given a
life sentence in Russia’s longest-running terrorism trial involving the largest
number of defendants. Accused of involvement in 2005 attacks on the city of
Nalchik, near where he lives, he was tortured and forced into confessing to
involvement in the attacks. His co-defendants were also tortured into saying he
was involved, even though they didn’t know who he was. The fact that he had
returned from Guantánamo unable to walk and had been seen by neighbours at the
same time was discounted in favour of torture evidence. The fact that he had
been held at Guantánamo, where he was never charged, was used as a hinge for
the whole case against all 58 defendants in the case. His lawyers plan to
appeal. He has suffered further torture in his past 9 years of incarceration in
Russia and has a case against the Russian authorities pending before the
European Court of Human Rights.

On 9 December, the long-awaited and controversial redacted and partial
publication (introduction only) of 500 pages of the US Senate’s report on CIA
torture under the premise of the “war on terror” was finally issued.

The document has confirmed much of what prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay
or caught up in extraordinary rendition have said for years as well as
revealing new claims. It has further sparked a false debate in the
international media on whether and when torture can be justified. The answer
should be simple to any literate person from the US or most of its allied and
enemy states that are signatories to the UN Convention Against Torture, which
in Article 1 imposes a blanket prohibition on the use of torture in all
circumstances. The debate has no doubt been sparked – and sustained even by the
so-called progressive media – to cover up the culpability of the US and its
allies and the fact that the revelations made could spark a slew of new
litigation or support existing claims. Some European allies, such as the
Republic of Ireland and Iceland have also sought to cover their backs by asking
the US to look again into US military flights that stopped in their territories
that have later been called “torture flights”, carrying rendition victim from
one location to another, when such flights stopped to refuel. It has also
raised questions about the role of doctors and medical professionals in the
practice of psychological torture methods.

The following day, Human Rights Day, 10 December, at the Australian Human
Rights Award, former Guantánamo prisoner David Hicks took the Australian
Attorney General George Brandis aback when he heckled him during his speech and
reminded him of his government’s complicity in torture.

In addition, a few days later, a pre-trial hearing scheduled in the
Guantánamo military tribunal of five men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks,
was suspended. It has been reported that the findings in the disclosed part of
the report could help their defence.

With respect to the United Kingdom, the report has raised questions as
well about the US military’s use of the British-administered island of Diego
Garcia in the Chagos Islands. The government has previously knowledge of or
that the US was using the site to torture alleged terrorists. Fresh demands
have been made that the UK hold an independent inquiry into the government’s
torture complicity.

There is no monthly
demonstration in January. Please join us instead on Sunday 11th
January at 2-4pm outside the US Embassy as we mark the 13th
anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo Bay on 11th January 2002.
This year’s action is entitled “Is This Who We Are?”

Take action!

We hold a regular monthly demonstration calling for the closure of Guantánamo Bay. Our March demonstration is on Thursday 8 March at 12-2pm outside the US Embassy, 33 Nine Elms Ln, London SW11 7US: https://www.facebook.com/events/975903689224552/

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About Me

The London Guantánamo Campaign has been campaigning since 2006 for the return of all British residents from the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, the release of all prisoners, the closure of this prison and other similar prisons and an end to the practice of extraordinary rendition. Also on Facebook and Twitter.